Tattoo parlor owners must be salivating. An assertion in a Minneapolis Star Tribune article that our understanding of the zodiac is off by about a month - and that therefore people have been identifying themselves with the wrong sign - caught fire on the internet Thursday, and many folks are in an absolute panic on social media.

"If my zodiac symbol has been changed to a Libra, what am I supposed to do with my Scorpio tattoo?!?!," read one tweet Thursday.

Some vowed to get their tats removed. Others groaned about losing the sign with which theyâ€™ve identified themselves for years. The zodiac and related terms - including Ophiuchus, said to be a 13thÂ and neglected sign - were trending Twitter topics much of Thursday.

But before astrology fans scrape the ink from their arms because they think they're now a Virgo instead of a Libra, they should consider this: If they adhered to the tropical zodiac - which, if they're a Westerner, they probably didÂ - absolutely nothing has changed for them.

That's worth rephrasing:Â If you considered yourself a Cancer under the tropical zodiac last week, you're still a Cancer under the same zodiac this week.

That's because the tropical zodiacÂ - which is fixed to seasons, and which Western astrology adheres toÂ - differs from the sidereal zodiacÂ - which is fixed to constellations and is followed more in the East, and is the type of zodiac to which the Star Tribune article ultimately refers.

Two zodiacs. That's nothing new.

"This storyÂ is born periodically as if someone has discovered some truth. It's not news," said Jeff Jawer, astrologer with Tarot.com.

The hubbub started with Sunday's Star Tribune article, which said the following: "The ancient Babylonians based zodiac signs on the constellation the sun was 'in' on the day a person was born. During the ensuing millenniums, the moonâ€™s gravitational pull has made the Earth 'wobble' around its axis, creating about a one-month bump in the stars' alignment."

"When [astrologers] say that the sun is in Pisces, itâ€™s really not in Pisces," Parke Kunkle, a board member of the Minnesota Planetarium Society, told the Star Tribune.

"Indeed," the article continued, "most horoscope readers who consider themselves Pisces are actually Aquarians." The article also asserts Scorpio's window lasts only seven days, and that a 13th constellation, Ophiuchus, used to be counted between Scorpio and Sagittarius but was discarded by the Babylonians because they wanted 12 signs per year.

True enough, Jawer says, the sun doesn't align with constellations at the same time of year that it did millennia ago. But thatâ€™s irrelevant for the tropical zodiac, codified for Western astrology by Ptolemy in the second century, he says.

In the tropical zodiac, the start of Aries is fixed to one equinox, and Libra the other.

"When we look at the astrology used in the Western world, the seasonally based astrology has not changed, was never oriented to the constellations, and stands as â€¦ has been stated for two millenniums," Jawer said.

People who put stock in astrologyÂ canÂ ask whether they should adhere to the tropical zodiac or the sidereal zodiac. Jawer argues for the tropical.

"Astrology is geocentric. It relates life on Earth to the Earthâ€™s environment, and seasons are the most dramatic effect, which is why we use the tropical zodiac," he said.

If you believe in astrology and think the stars and the planets have an effect on your life....you're sadly mistaken. God is the only One. You shouldn't have faith in nature...or stars and planets. You need to put your faith in the Only One Who can save you. Jesus Christ.

numerology is astrology/ fun and real for the people that really understand that numbers are in everything!! numbers is a very ease language even a baby can understand.LOL ALL DAY!! it's much more then daily news paper b.../online sometimes b... and books that put millions of people on the same path everyday. it's much deeper then most people think. it takes time to really get the real stuff from all types of books and number never lie.

This is such a relief, my whole life I thought I was a Sagitarious and it just never felt quite right, I knew in my heart that no matter how hard I tried I could never really be a Sagitarian. I can finally come out of the closest and be who I really am.

Someday soon you will read your horoscope, it will say you are going to have a great day, you boss will give you recongnition and maybe a raise, instead you will be fired and only then realize that you read the wrong horoscope.

Ophiuchus? What does this really mean? The beginning of the end of the Earth is what it means.

So what do we know about the reason for the added sign?

The media reports the earths axis is being pulled by the moon which is effectively changing the direction of magnetic north. Yet they have not reported why.

The following is what I believe

The earth axis is being changed because of us, humans because of several things.

1. Our use of fossil fuels.
2. Our use of technology
3. Our pension for greed.

1. Use of fossil fuels. This one is easy. We consume a lot of fossil fuel, namely oil coal, gas. These things have weight, mass, area and also a magnetic field. We use it in things like, gas, rubber, cleaning products, whatever you can make from oil and those are a lot of things. We pretty use them in everything. Hereâ€™s the easy part, less fossil fuel, less mass, weight, less magnetisms on earth. One thing to contribute for off balance of the earth.

2. Technology. The media wants us to the think the moon is pulling the earth of axisâ€¦sure blame it on the moon. What did the moon ever do to you? Actually, it is the moon, but itâ€™s also all the satellites. There are a lot of satellites out there, more than there ever has been in the world. Also, what do you think those satellites are doing? They are transmitting data, tons of data, terabytes among terabytes of songs, movies, books, information, whatâ€™s his name Anderson reportsâ€¦u get the picture. Also this data has weight, mass and you guess it, a magnetic field. So, u got the satellites adding to the pull on the earth as well as the data. Boom more off axis-nests. Is that a word?
3. Greed- Okay, this one is hard to put down so letâ€™s use our imagination a bit. The more we buy, the more things need to be produced, the more shipped, the more of everything needs to be made and more consumption of fossil fuels. This is really where we can stop this mess. We have to figure a way for everyone to get what they want and not have to make so much money to buy those things, or kill anyone for it.
How do we do that? We need to go a back to pre oil era economy. Meaning we need to figure out how to get everything to cost less and devalue the dollar, come up with a one money system. More on this later.

We basically need to stop using oil and stop putting so much satellites and transmitting so much data.

If we do not change, we will die. The earth will be so pulled off axis that earthquakes, volcanoes will become more frequent. And the end will be near. The new sign is Ophiuchus. It is an image of a man wrestling a serpent. The serpent is us or its nature. Or itâ€™s our fight to control nature through ourselves.

See the flaw with your arguement is that the magnetic field of the earth has changed before and that was before satellites and mass media and GDPs that could crush an elephant. It's like a pendulum. We've swung all the way out to one side and now we're heading back the other way.

Also, you, me and pretty much everyone alive right now will be long dead before the magnetic field changes so dramatically. Get over it.

I agree that using fossil fuels needs to stop, for several reasons: 1. they're non-renewable, and will be exhausted. The Industrial economy (including most of our food production)is precariously unsustainable if we continue to rely upon fossil fuels, the consequences of not transitioning to renewables would be globally catastrophic. 2. The production and distribution of Oil, Natural Gas and Coal is environmentally destructive and hazardous to human health: The BP oil/dispersants fiasco, fly ash sludge in kentucky, strip-mining in West Virginia. Their combustion is driving Global Climate Change, which by releasing CO2 which has been stored beneath the earth's crust since the Paleozoic era, when the global climate was much hotter (on average)than it is currently. Logically, raising the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere to even a fraction of Paleozoic levels will cause the Earth's Crust to heat up significantly over the next several hundred years, precipitating the extinction of many species which have evolved to adapt to climate conditions specific to the present time. Sea levels could rise significantly,permanently flooding enormous tracts of coastal land with high population densities, e.g. Florida, Bangladesh, the Netherlands. This is all Scientifically proven.

However pretty much everything else you said was scientifically unfounded. No offense but it was. Got science?

I find this all fascinating... In fact so much so that a few years ago I wrote about the 13th sign aka Ophiuchus aka Serpentarius in my band By Blood Alone's song recorded on Seas of Blood called..... Serpentarius. Want to listen? Listen here! http://www.reverbnation.com/bybloodalone.

Serpetarius
by
By Blood Alone

The twelve signs don't align
as they scurry across the sky
70 or more are simply forgotten
what's this 13th sign
honored only for his plight
interpreting the dreams of those surround him

As we look up to the sky so high
we correlate our lives with the night
as we calmly lie each night
Serpentarius we try

The eagle made his way
to strike him down and end his days
pluto wielding a great bolt of thunder
he tried to raise the dead
healing sick with serpent hands
robbing hell of its due souls heading under

the answers that we search inside to find
reveal themselves to us, causing fright
as we slowly die each night
Serpentarius we try to find the light

As we live our separate lives no ties
the universe survives spanning time
as we calmly lie each night
Serpentarius we die to find the light

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